2. Academic Validation
  3. Galactinol as marker for seed longevity

Galactinol as marker for seed longevity

  • Plant Sci. 2016 May;246:112-118. doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2016.02.015.
Deborah de Souza Vidigal 1,  Leo Willems 2,  Jeroen van Arkel 3,  Bas J W Dekkers 4,  Henk W M Hilhorst 5,  Leónie Bentsink 6
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Wageningen Seed Lab, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: dsvidigal@gmail.com.
  • 2 Wageningen Seed Lab, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: leo.willems@wur.nl.
  • 3 Plant Research International, Wageningen UR, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PD Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: jeroen.vanarkel@wur.nl.
  • 4 Wageningen Seed Lab, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: bas.dekkers@wur.nl.
  • 5 Wageningen Seed Lab, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: henk.hilhorst@wur.nl.
  • 6 Wageningen Seed Lab, Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: leonie.bentsink@wur.nl.
PMID: 26993241 DOI: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2016.02.015
Abstract

Reduced seed longevity or storability is a major problem in seed storage and contributes to increased costs in crop production. Here we investigated whether seed galactinol contents could be predictive for seed storability behavior in Arabidopsis, cabbage and tomato. The analyses revealed a positive correlation between galactinol content and seed longevity in the three species tested, which indicates that this correlation is conserved in the Brassicaceae and beyond. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping in tomato revealed a co-locating QTL for galactinol content and seed longevity on chromosome 2. A candidate for this QTL is the GALACTINOL SYNTHASE gene (Solyc02g084980.2.1) that is located in the QTL interval. GALACTINOL SYNTHASE is a key Enzyme of the raffinose family oligosaccharide (RFO) pathway. To investigate the role of Enzymes in the RFO pathway in more detail, we applied a reverse genetics approach using T-DNA knock-out lines in genes encoding Enzymes of this pathway (GALACTINOL SYNTHASE 1, GALACTINOL SYNTHASE 2, RAFFINOSE SYNTHASE, STACHYOSE SYNTHASE and ALPHA-GALACTOSIDASE) and overexpressors of the cucumber GALACTINOL SYNTHASE 2 gene in Arabidopsis. The galactinol synthase 2 mutant and the galactinol synthase 1 galactinol synthase 2 double mutant contained the lowest seed galactinol content which coincided with lower seed longevity. These results show that galactinol content of mature dry seed can be used as a biomarker for seed longevity in Brassicaceae and tomato.

Keywords

Arabidopsis; Galactinol; Galactinol synthase; Raffinose oligosaccharide family; Seed deterioration; Seed longevity.

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